Parents get the lowdown from Shael Polakow-Suransky, chief academic officer for the city Department of Education.Staten Island Advance/Kiawana Rich

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The city dispatched a top city education official to Staten Island Monday night to reassure parents in advance of next week's state tests.

The new Common Core Standards that will inform the tests have the educational community, including the borough's public school families, in a swivet.

But Shael Polakow-Suransky, chief academic officer of the Department of Education, told the assemblage of about 140 people at the Michael J. Petrides Educational Complex in Sunnyside that their fears for their children and their schools are misplaced.

Common Core standards emphasize deeper and more critical thinking, and a number of parents and educators at the Community Education Council 31 meeting said students in grades three to eight are panicking.

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"The test is a cruel disservice to children," said Loretta Prisco, an education advocate. Not only are children scared because they don't know the material, Ms. Prisco said, but educators fear that bad results will reflect back on them and the schools at which they teach.

"The DOE has put nothing but fear into children and staff, and fear is one thing we try to keep out of the classroom," said the former public school teacher.

Polakow-Suransky acknowledged the rampant "high anxiety" during a difficult transition period. One argument for the tests, he said, is that too many graduates of the city's public high schools lack the skills needed for college and employment.

"We need to deliver kids a real education that gives them real options when they graduate [from] high school," he said.

Also, he said, federal Race to the Top funding requires that states raise their standards.

Addressing the phenomenon of parents "opting out" students from the tests, Polakow-Suransky said that while there's no mechanism for doing so, neither is there retribution.

Martin Krongold, with the Citywide Council of High Schools, faulted the DOE for a failure to communicate and urged that resources be directed away from tests toward superior instruction.

Meanwhile, CEC Member Frank Squicciarini reported anecdotal evidence that "kids can't sleep at night" and that stomach problems associated with the tests have spurred a stampede to doctors' offices.

"Kids are being told to opt out or not show up because they are being told that the tests can only hurt you," he alleged.

Polakow-Suransky sought to allay those fears. Historically, he said, the bottom 10 percent of students are sent to summer school every year, and the new tests shouldn't change those numbers.

Even for those who fail the tests, promotion or lack thereof will be based on a qualitative assessment of the student's work, he said.

"We are not looking to send huge numbers of kids to summer school or hold huge numbers back. We know this is the first time for the exam and it will take some time for kids to get adjusted to it, to learn to do this work well."